Johel Brown-Grant: Profiles in Knowledge

Originally published November 18, 2022

6 min readNov 19, 2022

This is the 85th article in the Profiles in Knowledge series featuring thought leaders in knowledge management. Johel Brown-Grant specializes in using storytelling to create job stories, user journeys, and personas. He has expertise in implementing knowledge strategies to map knowledge flows, uncover tacit knowledge, and foster an agile environment. Johel applies User Experience (UX) and design thinking methodologies to support product development, using service design to support innovation.

Johel is a storytelling strategist, UX architect, design thinking specialist, and knowledge management professional with extensive experience in enterprise learning, change management, and business storytelling. He speaks and facilitates workshops on the power of storytelling to teach, engage, empower, motivate, and connect learners, leaders, groups, and professional communities across diverse industries and professions. Johel has led important knowledge management and storytelling projects in government, corporate, and academic settings. In his current role at the U.S. State Department, he coordinates enterprise learning efforts across multiple departments.

A former Fulbright scholar, Johel holds master’s degrees in sociolinguistics, literature, and information and knowledge strategy from Universidad de Costa Rica, University of Pittsburgh, and Columbia University in the City of New York, respectively, and a doctorate in communication and rhetoric from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is based in Washington, DC.

I enjoyed his session at KMWorld last week. I am in the lower right corner of this photo:

Background

Originally form Costa Rica, Johel’s journey through storytelling and design began when, as a grad student in English Literature, he read Karen Shriver’s Dynamics in Document Design. With his prior training in sociolinguistics, he started to make the connections between culture, stories, language, and design. That experience came full circle when he worked in the software industry researching the design and development of style guides for graphical user interfaces. His entire career since then has been a constant exploration, discovery, testing, learning, and training others on the story-design-experience lifecycle.

Johel’s career is a collection of eclectic stories and experiences as a usability engineer, college professor and administrator, head of corporate communication, UX researcher/designer, knowledge management leader, strategist, and author. However, his most prized role is as a storyteller aficionado, who enjoys joining story slams and occasionally making appearances in the DC Moth storytelling circles.

Education

Columbia University — MS, Information and Knowledge Strategy, 2011–2012
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute — PhD, Communication and Rhetoric, 1998–2002
University of Pittsburgh — MA, English, 1996–1998
Universidad de Costa Rica — M.L., Linguistics, 1994–1996
Grinnell College

Profiles

Content

Articles

ResearchGate
ResearchGate (search)
Semantic Scholar
De la Difusión a la Generación del Conocimiento: Elementos para lograr un Salto Cualitativo en el Uso de la Plataformas Virtuales (From Diffusion to Knowledge Generation: Elements to achieve a Qualitative Leap in the Use of Virtual Platforms)

Incorporación de las tecnologías de información y comunicaciónen la docencia universitaria estatal costarricense: Problemas y soluciones (Incorporation of information and communication technologies in Costa Rican state university teaching: Problems and solutions)

This article analyzes the issues that currently hinder the efforts to integrate Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into instruction in the Costa Rican state-run higher education system. To address these issues, the article offers a set of solutions that may be used as a basis to improve ongoing ICT integration efforts or as a springboard for ICT integration initiatives. As a conclusion the article poses that the ultimate solution for ICT integration into college teaching involves a change of attitude among university authorities and the opening of wider and more effective discursive spaces to flesh out these issues

Blogs

Storytelling Chronicle 1: The Experience is the Story
Storytelling Chronicle 2: The Storyverse
Storytelling Chronicle 3: Data…the story
Storytelling Chronicle 4: NASA’s My Best Mistake
Storytelling Chronicle 5: Interview Question # 1
Storytelling Chronicle 6: What Makes a Good Story?
Storytelling Chronicle 7: Organizational EQ
Storytelling Chronicle 8: What can storytelling do for project management?

Articles by Others

Knowledge Services and Storytelling by Guy St. Clair
Building KM Skills: World Vision, U.S. Department of State, and NASWA Discuss Traits for Success by APQC

Employing storytelling as a vehicle for knowledge sharing at KMWorld 2022 by Sydney Blanchard

Stories are the best way to get to the experience; experience is the story, and the story is the experience. Putting together a story is the act of putting together knowledge.

Presentations

KMWorld Conference

2022 A102: Storytelling as Strategy: How Narrative Shapes Knowledge

Organizations often approach storytelling as a positive and important resource that may be implemented to address complex operational challenges. This perspective usually focuses on the possible benefits narratives may yield and the need to develop resources to support storytelling initiatives. Even though there is an increasing understanding of the power of narratives to capture and share knowledge, there is a wide gap between what we perceive storytelling can do for organizations and the actual mechanisms and practices needed to implement it.
Really effective storytelling in organizations must be conceived, developed, and deployed as a strategy that encompasses multiple actors, so resources are coordinated in a framework supporting an institutional vision for knowledge sharing. Johel explained why storytelling is a strategy, what its basic elements are, and what organizations need to do to develop and implement one that supports organizational goals. Drawing on practical examples, case studies and work by various authors, he took attendees on a practical and interactive journey to get ideas to develop their own storytelling strategies.
Slides